CITY HALL -- The city's borough presidents sat down with the
deputy mayor tasked with fulfilling Mayor Bill de Blasio's affordable housing
campaign promises Tuesday, and Borough President James Oddo said he stressed
Staten Island's unique needs.

He also identified two areas where affordable housing, which
might be shunned in some Staten Island neighborhoods, could work -- for senior
housing, and in redeveloping areas destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

"We want to build back a better housing stock, and if we can
have the administration understand that acquisition for redevelopment in parts
of Staten Island fits hand in glove with that, and at the same time not have 10
pounds of affordable housing thrown into a two-pound Staten Island bag in other
parts of the borough, then we're on to something," Oddo said.

Oddo and his four fellow borough presidents had a sit-down
with Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen Tuesday. She's been tasked with implementing a
plan to create or save 200,000 units of affordable housing in New York City.

"I told her that I heard, I appreciate, and I respect that,
in her words, this is a five-borough, shared responsibility," Oddo said. "I
think it's just incumbent on me to start with the unique nature of Staten
Island -- that we are very different than the four other boroughs."

While some other areas have clamored for more affordable
housing, Staten Islanders are wary of any increased housing density.

"It's not affordable housing -- it's any kind of housing,"
Oddo said. "This was the epicenter of overdevelopment."

He said he stressed the borough's need for additional
infrastructure to deal with its already growing population, let alone
additional units of housing.

"At roughly 500,000 people, our infrastructure is overtaxed
in many areas," Oddo said. "You have to be very, very sensitive to each of the
communities and each of the boroughs."

One group on Staten Island that could be well-served by
affordable housing units are senior citizens, Oddo said. The population of
older Staten Islanders is growing rapidly, and many seniors are on fixed
incomes.

"When you talk about affordability on Staten Island, you
should start with seniors, because that's a really big need," he said.

"We want to build back in these communities what is
affordable housing," Oddo said.

The administration is looking to build affordable housing
for families earning upward of 165 percent of the average median income, Oddo
said, which could apply to the "proverbial cop married to a teacher" household
common on Staten Island.

Many of those displaced by Hurricane Sandy could fit that
bill, as would people who might like to settle in redeveloped, safer housing in
parts of the East Shore. And the housing stock that had been in areas hit by
the storm were among the borough's more affordable housing units.

"If you look at the median incomes and you look at their
range of affordability, it is well within that," Oddo said.

Further, he said the goals of acquisition for redevelopment
- replacing large swaths of old, substandard bungalows with new, safer,
elevated housing stock, ideally without adding extra units - fit well with the
mayor's goals for affordable housing.

Deputy Mayor Glen, he said, "believes in the importance of
neighborhood planning, the broader revitalization strategy," Oddo said. "Well,
that is acquisition for redevelopment."

Oddo has been making the pitch for the program, which was
inspired by programs used in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, to just about
everyone in city government, including de Blasio, who has hedged on the issue.